


Galaxies of distance

by apollodragon



Series: Amarantos [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollodragon/pseuds/apollodragon
Summary: Five instances of Lance's feelings for Shiro through the years and a note on where they stand nowadays, from the eyes of a Lance that could never quite forgive himself for leaving the team.





	Galaxies of distance

**Author's Note:**

> Introspection based on an AU where Lance left the team for the greater good back when the fight was still going on (the fic explains the bits you need to know). It'll probably never get written because I'm bad but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Inspired by reading otp headcanons while listening to Britney Spears at the normal hour of 4:30 am.

          There are things he hates, which bring a hot searing flame alive inside his heart and fill him to the brim with liquid rage. There are things he hates and when he dedicates a couple seconds to examine his feelings, he doesn’ t hate Shirogane. His feelings are far from being the same as back then though.

Admiration. Back when he was still in middle school he had pinned the guy’s double page magazine article in the middle of his corkboard, just so he could look at him every time he came back home exhausted from football training. Clad in an orange and brown uniform, he stood straight with his hands crossed and smiling at the camera. His picture accompanied the article about the only son of Robert and Lisa Shirogane, who at the young age of sixteen had gotten himself a scholarship for the most prestigious pilot program the States had to offer. From then Takashi Shirogane would go on to achieve great results and appear in demonstrations and even more magazines, quickly becoming Lance’s idol.

When the “ship crashed with a meteorite” after taking off back to Earth it had been the second worst day of his life. He’d been scandalised by the first reports of his hero taking a turn against all orders: he knew for a fact Shirogane Takashi had never gone below a ninety one in his sims, but as the media flooded with notes on the academy’s official statement, he felt his confusion give in to despair and a cold ache in his chest. Devastated, he’d spent an uncertain ammount of time locked in the room’s shared bathroom, crying as his body shook from the whirlwind of emotions going through him.

To say he was shocked would have been an understatement of the chaos that stormed inside his brain as they ran towards the building where Shiro was being kept captive. It was unbelievable except for the part where not only did he see it with his own eyes, but he also had a couple of witnesses to it actually happening. He was hopeful. He was amazed at seeing Shiro in the flesh, alive and had he just landed a broken space ship, in land, and lived to tell the tale? Now that was something worthy of his surprisingly alive hero, something good and real and not an obituary inbetween newspaper pages. They were fugitives of the school now but he was overjoyed nonetheless to be walking into caves with him. They say heroes never die but he liked this outcome much more than the phrase’s intended meaning.

 

It all turns into disappointment though, disappointment in both himself and Shiro. Turns out he wasn’t as good a teammate as he thought he was. Difficult to work with, loud and always getting in people’s faces about things, Lance was far away from the nice guy he thought he was. It was a dreadful realisation, to find out he was a constant disturbance to their team dynamics. It was on him, when his attempts at watching everyone’s back at the same time turned into a poor job on covering the person he was actually supposed to be watching out for. It too was on him when his lack of skill meant sometimes he wouldn’t be able to get things done on his end and compromise big parts of their operations. He’d let down not only his team, but also the one he looked up to the most, and that was the feeling that soaked his whole body as he piloted the pod away from the Castle of Lions.

 

It was time later that his circumstances forced him to move on from blue thoughts and focus on finding opportunities rather than dwelling in how much he failed his former team. To this day he knows things wouldn’t have gone the way they did had he measured up to what was asked of him, had he been stronger of mind, but his new war struggles opened an ever expanding bubble in his brain where he realised that not only had he let them down, Shirogane had let him down too. His leader, his friend: he was so only when he had to. Only when a mission was going on, only when their training demanded all five of them to put effort in improving their teamwork. It took him a while to admit to himself what he’d already been subconciously acting on back then, that Shirogane didn’t care much about him. Shirogane wasn’t there for him the way a leader must. Although he didn’t yell at him “ _Well I don’t trust you!_ ” like Keith did, he didn’t try to work it out with Lance either. He just kept on assigning him less and less critical roles, his solution was plain damage control. This new perspective on things changed everything, because while he’ll always look back on his early years with fondness and appreciation for how far those feelings got him, it was the last time he blindly held someone in such high regard. The stark contrast between the Shirogane he idealised and the Shirogane that came to be is one of the reasons he has kept his activities on their time apart a secret from the whole Voltron team, why whenever they meet because of course all their destinies are forever entwined he’ll only acknowledge the galaxies of emotional distance between them with a greeting and a nod. He doesn’t go out of his way to offer anything more and instead watches how this time it’s Shirogane the one that tries to close the gap between each other. Because while the man failed him, he’s grateful for all he did, for all he sacrificed, to take back the galaxy from Zarkon and the Galra’s control.

He doesn’t hate Shirogane Takashi but that doesn’t mean he's comfortable around him either.


End file.
